In a September 2014 article in the Daily Egyptian, Nathan Stephens, director of the Center for Inclusive Excellence, stated: “Diversity tends to be compositional, with numbers… Inclusivity speaks more specifically on getting people together but also looking at why they weren’t here in the first place.” If we are to take Stephens’ words seriously, “diversity” is something that can be measured with quotas, percentages, and statistics. On the other hand, “inclusivity” is an activity: it is something we do to improve our lives and our campus.

Keeping that in mind, I want to talk about some problems with how we think about diversity and inclusivity. The reason I am focusing on diversity first is simple: we tend to treat diversity as a “solution” to problems of racial inequality. In other words: an organization committed to diversity is also committed to combatting racial inequality, and therefore cannot be involved with racism. Diversity becomes something valuable because it promotes the image of not being involved with the specter of racism.

Recall Stephens’ words concerning diversity as “compositional,” or concerned with numbers. This creates an idea of diversity, or being diverse, as only concerned with how many “diverse” individuals are present in the organization. In short, an organization can argue against the presence of racism or discrimination by presenting positive “diversity” numbers: the higher the number of “diverse” individuals, the easier it is for the institution to divorce itself from racism. Now, if we are to assume that “diverse” means “non-white,” then SIUC’s factbook puts the diversity of the student population at 28.8 percent. 

Reduced to a numbers game, diversity allows institutions to avoid looking at the structures that maintain racism because the presence of diverse bodies “proves” a lack of racism. Because defeating arguments of a lack of diversity—and the implications of racism—becomes as simple as presenting numbers, institutions are not challenged to change the practices that create the very need to demonstrate diversity in the first place. In this way, diversity, as a numbers game, allows for the perpetuation of systemic racism by allowing organizations not to think about the causes for their lack of diversity.

This is, I think, why Stephens makes a separation between “inclusion” and “diversity.” This difference may also be why SIUC’s mission statement includes “inclusive excellence,” rather than “diversity” in its first line. If “inclusion” is something that the members of an organization do, and inclusive excellence something an organization aspires to, the bar for anti-racist work is raised: rather than demonstrating numbers, the organization has to demonstrate action in combatting racism. In the case of SIUC, this action takes the form of creating of approved spaces where conversations about race can be had.

To be clear, spaces can be anything from entire departments concerned with the experiences of African-Americans, to three credit hour multicultural requirements to satisfy degrees, to student organizations dedicated to cultural outreach and exchange, or even centers for inclusive excellence. By providing the spaces where “inclusion” can take place, the university can present itself as taking action against racism and discrimination. However, this has the effect of stating in no uncertain terms that conversations about inclusivity are to be restricted to special spaces and times, like Black History Month, for example.

There are a couple of problems with this approach to inclusivity. First, by creating these spaces, the university also places all of the responsibility for action on the individual: if individuals choose not to use the resources that the university has generously provided, then it is not the university that is at fault, but the individuals who have chosen not to used these spaces to engage in the activity of inclusivity. Second, this approach to inclusivity assumes that students are actively looking for spaces. However, since the university simply provides the spaces, and not active encouragement to use them, it is difficult to see how this approach fulfills the university’s mission of inclusive excellence.

More seriously, since the university is an education institution with “student success” as one of its missions, it would follow that it would seek to make the education of its student body as inclusive as possible. However, the relegation of coursework related to the experiences of minority populations to a single three-hour elective requirements perpetuates the idea that the history and experience of minorities are to be studied as an after-thought, rather than as important contributions to the education of your student body. When a university treats education about the experiences of other cultures as an elective requirement, it contributes to the ignorance about these cultures that leads to racism. Further, this demonstrates a lack of commitment to the university’s mission of “inclusive excellence.” 

This is not to call for the university to abandon its attempts at the creation of spaces for inclusivity; it is a call for the university to recognize that it has a role to play beyond simply providing resources and expecting students to understand what to do with them. Inclusivity, as an activity, must be active and the university must take steps to promote and encourage participation in the spaces that it seeks to provide, rather than relying upon students to seek out these spaces on their own. If “inclusive excellence” is to be included in the mission of the university, along with “student success,” it needs to take as active a role in nurturing one as it does the other.

I wish I could conclude with an optimistic point, but I can’t in good conscience. Proponents of diversity call for more diverse hires, a more diverse student body, more recognition of excellence in the face of adversity, without recognizing why that adversity is there in the first place. It would be, as Martin Luther King, Jr., once suggested, integrating into a burning house. Adding diverse bodies to disrupt the appearance of exclusion only serves to cover up the problem: we, as a community, as Salukis, need to address the issue at its root, and that involves hard conversations. 

On the other hand, these conversations cannot be limited to “approved spaces,” no matter how numerous, nor should they be reserved for the 28 days of February during Black History Month. These conversations, as part of a commitment to “inclusive excellence,” need to happen in all of our classrooms, all of our departments, and the university, as an institution committed to the cultivation of inclusive excellence, needs to recognize that it has to take a more active role in the promotion of these conversations. Otherwise, we risk perpetuating the culture that enabled the deaths of Kimani Gray, Vonderrit Myers, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Reika Boyd, Aiyana Jones, and Amadou Diallo, among countless others.